Calcutta University Eyes Accreditation and Ranking Leap

Calcutta University Eyes Accreditation and Ranking Leap

Last Updated Oct - 31 - 2025, 10:23 AM | Source : Fela News | Visitors : 42

Calcutta University pursues NAAC NBA accreditation and ranking revival to secure key funding.

Calcutta University (CU), one of India’s venerable institutions, is facing a critical juncture: without renewed accreditation and improved ranking it risks losing access to vital funding from agencies.

New full-term Vice-Chancellor Ashutosh Ghosh has made accreditation-and-ranking reform a top priority. CU was last accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in February 2017, securing an ‘A’ grade with a score of 3.2 but has since been overdue for reaccreditation. 

Ghosh pointed out that various funding agencies such as the Department of Science and Technology (DST) may withhold grants if the university lacks current accreditation. “We cannot afford such a situation,” he stressed. 

Beyond institutional accreditation, Ghosh also emphasised the need for programme-level accreditation by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) especially for CU’s four-year BTech engineering programmes launched in 2015. While peer institutions like Jadavpur University have secured such accreditation, CU has lagged. 

Ranking performance is another issue. In the latest edition of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), CU dropped from 18th to 39th overall among universities, and from 4th to 15th among state universities. 

To reverse this trend, Ghosh outlined steps including filling vacant teaching posts (nearly 52 % vacant), improving timeliness of result publication, and ensuring postgraduate courses begin before major holidays. 

The challenge is significant: CU must address institutional inertia, outdated processes and resource constraints. But if the university succeeds, it can restore its standing, attract better students and faculty, and unlock funding that supports research and infrastructure renewal.

In effect, the university is at a crossroads: invest in reform now, or risk decline in relevance and resources. The next academic year will be critical for setting a course towards revitalisation.
 

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